668 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



" Indeed I want one! What lecturer would not? " 



I give this as an instance of the peculiar persistency of African 

 ideas even in enlightened, civilized, Christian minds. 



There is a Mrs. R in a side street in a Northern town whom I 



lately visited. She was the most prominent member in the Baptist 

 colored church. She was the leading singer. Another singer 

 got jealous of her power to holler the loudest; besides, she wanted 

 to get her washing away from her as well as her husband, and, 

 worst of all, conjured her. At last the first singer fell sick, and 

 the doctor could do nothing to relieve her. A conjure woman 

 called, and for twenty-five dollars undertook the case. She came 

 in and moaned a few incantations in an unknown tongue. She 

 carried a satchel, and took from it a glass, poured some gin into it 

 and drank a little, and then, holding her hand over it, said: 



" Mrs. 11 , look inside yourself and tell me wdiat you see." 



Mrs. E. was hypnotized, I suppose, and said, " I see pizen, 



and snakes a-crawlin'." 



'' That's right! It's the lady across the way has put the spell on 

 you, and she has cut your shape out in red flannel and stuck it full 

 of pins and needles and biled it. She's trickin' you, and killin' 

 you. But I'll throw it back on her — scatter your spell to the four 

 winds. She has killed a snake and taken the blood and mixed it 

 "with wine, and in twenty-four hours it turned into snakes and you 

 drank it and you were going crazy, and your home would have been 

 gone." It is needless to say the sick woman recovered. 



She showed the caul she was born with tied up in a bundle in 

 her stocking. The neighbors were always trying to touch the lump 

 so they could put spells on people and be healed from diseases. 

 The conjure woman also makes luck balls for sale. She tells her 

 customers they must always wear them next their skin on the right 

 side, and keep them wet with " feedin' medicine." 



I was so fortunate as to discover the contents of one of her balls. 

 Corn, twine, pepper, a piece of hair from under a black cat's foot, 

 a piece of rabbit's right foot, and whisky — all put into a red flannel 

 bag. This was all inclosed in a buckeye biscuit. She puts load- 

 stones in some of them to draw away a lover from a girl. She also 

 takes roots of several different herbs and flowers and makes them 

 into love powders, and gives them to a darkey lassie to throw upon 

 her truant lover to bring him back to her waiting heart. 



It is not to be disputed that Africa has touched in many ways 

 and in divers places the highest civilization of the Old "World. I 

 am fully persuaded that in the near future scientific researches 

 will discover among native African tribes traditions which disclose 

 the real parentage of many of the weird stories concerning the 



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